To be nobody-but-yourself -- in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
~ e. e. cummings

Friday, April 3, 2009

Phriday Photo Phun - Phew!

Now, folks've been clamoring for house pictures of the NEW digs. Well, I don't feel comfortable posting pictures on my blog just yet, as closing hasn't happened and the current owners are still living there and have all their belongings in there and such.So, a few "won't invade the privacy of the current owners" shots are all I can give you here now. Consider this a preview, and then if everything goes well, I should be able to post loads of photos on or about May 30th (hopefully sooner)...

This is the upstairs bathroom. Kiddo thinks the flower-n-butterfly wallpaper is "just so, so beautiful" and thinks the pattern of the sink counter is fantabulous:

Didn't get a close enough look at the countertop? Check it out in its full glory:

Now, I know I said the biggest cosmetic EEEK on the house is the wallpaper. And it *is* the wallpaper, too - mainly because every. Last. Square. Inch! of the house is wallpapered. Well, except for the family room and laundry room - those are wood paneling. (Hubby really despises wood paneling, by the way. With a passion.) But the wallpaper (which looks like this in the living room, for an example:)

isn't the only thing that will need updating.

Oh, no. There is also some wall-to-wall carpet that will need removing. It is predominately a plush, plush mauve (living room, dining room, stairs and upstairs hallway) but downstairs, in the fourth bedroom (that will be our home office), lurks this:

I'm not sure the cropping enables you to fully appreciate the depth and color variations of the shag. This shag is longer than my hair (and better highlighted, too). Egads. I have a sneaking feeling that until we get that carpet out, I will feel compelled to don a leisure suit every time I want to sit at my computer. Yes, that'll be me, blogging while looking like a Studio 54 wannabe (or is that Studio 57, Kara?). I'm tempted to trade in the overhead light for one of these bad boys:

Bam chicka wocka chicka bam chicka wow wow! (Someone please cue Adam Lambert singing Play That Funky Music here for me, will ya please? Or just have him come on over and serenade me once we've moved into the Time Warp Castle..... I know I'm digressing, but boy do I just love, love, LOVE Adam. Totally my favorite Idol contestant this season. Maybe ever.)

Anyhow, things are going as well as they can be (*knocking wood*) thus far with the house selling and buying processes. Hopefully mortgage loan commitment letters will be secured soon and attorneys will diligently work on all their shizzle to get us closer to closing. Woo! We've been through the house at length twice this week, and even have met the current owners, who are a lovely couple and who, despite having lived here in our distinctively accented corner of western NY for the better part of the past half decade, still both strongly speak in the unmistakable tones of New Englanders (Massachusetts, to be exact, as it turns out). I was waiting for them to tell me about pahking the cahs and mowing the yahd... While I myself try not to speak in the dulcet inflections of my native New Jersey (hey babe, I'll cawl you and we'll go to the mawl, okay?), I suppose it could be considered preferable to the local accent... (Oh, those flat "a" sounds especially make me cringe when I hear them flying willy-nilly out of my mouth. And to hear Kiddo talking in the local accent also makes me shudder.... I swear to you now, however, that Kiddo will refer to "soda" as "pop" only over my cold, dead, soda-drinking body, and I don't care what everyone else around here calls it!) I certainly never picked up the New England accent during our time living there, beyond grabbing hold of their fondness for the word wicked and bringing that back to NY with me, but I have heard myself mention the pond out behind our house and having it rhyme a little too closely with hand...

But I digress again. What I wanted to say before going off on that phonological/anthropological tangent is that we really, really love the house, despite the gentle ribbing of the plush shag and acres of wallpaper and Pepto-Bismol pink tile shower in the master bath. (Oh, didn't I show you that? Check it out:)

Yes, this house is going to need a lot of work to bring it from the Brady Bunch era up to the late Aughties, but it has many pluses, too:

It is less than 10 minutes from Hubby's office.

It is in one of the best school districts in the area.

It has a lovely, flat yard with mature trees (they actually provide SHADE!) and the yard is significantly bigger than our yard now.

It has four bedrooms, enabling us to have an actual office and not a guest room-slash-office.

In fact, it is almost 600 square feet bigger than our current home. Also, it has a bigger garage and a longer driveway for Kiddo's chalk art/bike or scooter riding/rollerskating pursuits.

Kiddo's bedroom will be much larger, enabling her to have more of her things (table and chairs, easel) in her room.

Hardwoods! Almost all the house has hardwoods, and they're in pretty good shape from what we can see of them.

It has a family room with a wood-burning fireplace. (Kiddo is especially excited about that, as now roasting marshmallows won't only be a treat for when we're visiting Grandma and Grandpa in NJ, and Santa can enter our home the traditional way instead of through the door off the deck.)

It has a master bath (albeit with pink tile and wallpaper). That's one bathroom more than we have now.

There's a utility sink in the laundry room. I had no idea how much I'd want a utility sink until I didn't have one in this house!

It has a most delightful "Florida room" aka a sunroom or a three-season porch. (Even better, my mom told us we can have my grandparents' rattan furniture set from their sunroom, which is presently languishing in storage in their attic. Totally psyched about that!)

It has a garbage disposal. We always meant to put one in here, after living with one in the townhouse we were in before building our house, but somehow we never got around to it.

The house is about ten minutes away from the best shopping mall in the area.

According to the current owners, the neighbors on either side have high-school aged daughters who babysit. Woo!

The yard that appears to have actual soil, instead of clay masquerading as soil. Deeelightful!

So, while I may whinge and moan in upcoming weeks/months/years about the horrid datedness of it all (we will be redoing as we live there, since we can't really swing the dough to hire an Extreme Home Makeover crew to whip through everything and won't have a window of time to do much of anything before we need to move in), I am really, really, reaaaaaallllllllly happy!

I heard that lots of people are painting OVER their wall paper. There's some prep work to do but its alot easier than removing it. I LOVE the PINK in the bathroom. I bet you can make it gorgeous! Congratulations!

Well that is so exciting! YAY you. I hope it all goes smoothly...including the move. And I know it's not a t-shirt with "crumpet strumpet" but I did make you an official one for your blog back when we did the last wheel. I emailed it too you. Didn't you get it? Or was it just too dopey to post lol Which is ok too...I'm not gonna feel bad if you didn't want to post it. NO pressure!

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About Me

I’ve been married to my best friend for almost 18 years. Kiddo joined our family the same way I joined my family as a baby; through domestic, independent adoption. We live in western, upstate NY, though I’m originally a Jersey Girl. I grew up on a working farm (as NJ is the Garden State, after all). I re-entered the paid workforce a year ago, after "opting out" to become a SAH mom back in '03, and am happily working part time as a church secretary. In my pre-SAH mom life, I worked for a nonprofit in vocational rehabilitation for people with disabilities. That background has come in handy now that I have a kid with some special needs of her own. In the past 9 years, I've been learning how to navigate the world of parenting in this techno-internet age. I also read 3 or 4 grown-up books a week, volunteer (class mom, PTSA, Girl Scout troop leader, church), sing, watch too much TV, don’t get out to see nearly as many movies as I used to pre-Kiddo and spend (too much) time hanging out on the internet...